C3 Coffee with Cameron

Join us onJanuary 13, 2015 from 4:15-5:30 for an informal overview on the C3 Social Studies standards with Jim Cameron, Social Studies Consultant from the Michigan Department of Education.

The Michigan Department of Education is in the process of updating the K-12 social studies content expectations (GLCEs and HSCEs) through the lens of the C3 Social Studies Framework’s Indicators and Arc of Inquiry.

Do you have questions about the C3 Framework or the updating process?

Do you have comments and ideas to share about what should be done?

Do you have suggestions for updating the content expectations?

Civil Rights Initiative

The Southern Poverty Law Center evaluates state social studies standards across the country and gave Michigan an “F” for our GLCEs and HSCEs. MDE is working with the Michigan Civil Rights Department, U of M’s School of Social Work, and U of M’s Law School Civil Rights Litigation Clearinghouse to improve our civil rights content. Register HERE.

Upcoming Disciplinary Literacy Training

Writing Collaborative

Helping teachers and students understand writing in the content areas in order to make explicit the processes and strategies needed to improve student writing, including:

Thursday, November 20, 2014

Speaking and Listening

Erik Palmer was our guest speaker for the October 1 K-12 Literacy Summit. If you didn't get a chance to be with us that day, the important work Erik is doing seems to be everywhere now!

His PVLEGS framework for speaking and listening can be seen here, but is also explained in this recent ASCD article, "Now Presenting."
Erik's framework is based upon his years on a debate team, working on the stock exchange, and over 20 years in the classroom. You'll find the framework easy to implement into something you and your students are already doing in the classroom- speaking and listening!

Parents as Writing Partners

Encourage parents to write with their children. By creating and telling a story, children learn to organize their thoughts and use written language to communicate with readers in a variety of ways. Writing stories also helps children better read, and understand, stories written by other people.

But as much fun as it can be, writing a story can also seem like a challenge to a child (or an adult!). By familiarizing a child with how authors create stories and what the different parts of a story are, introducing visual or written prompts that inspire him or her to think of story ideas, and encouraging him or her to plan before starting to write, you’ll help the child make a complete and imaginative story.

Upcoming Professional Development

Winter K-12 Literacy Summit

Socially and Culturally Relevant Literacy

Finding effective ways to teach today’s student population is perhaps the greatest challenge facing literacy educators in the United States. As classrooms become increasingly diverse, educators struggle to find curricula and pedagogical strategies that are inclusive and affirmative yet facilitate the development of academic and critical literacies. Much of the multicultural education literature has limited conceptions of culture as a racial or ethnic identity. Teachers have little help on creating learning communities in multiethnic classrooms (Mc,Carthy, 1998).

Join Dr. Morrell to learn about new approaches for critical reading of popular culture to help all students deconstruct dominant narratives in the teaching of literacy.

Writing in the World Language Classroom: Where there are words, there is magic!

February 10, 2015

8:30-3:30 at WISD

Writing in another language involves much more than translating and completing homework assignments from the text. Writing is a powerful skill through which students express themselves in the new language. This workshop addresses the national and state standards for written communication, compares those standards with common core expectations for writing, and explores a variety of real-world writing tasks and strategies at the word, phrase, sentence and paragraph level across a range of proficiency levels.

Taking action to become a teacher leader by engaging others in disciplinary literacy practices.

Consider attending our Writing Collaborative and Reading Apprenticeship trainings if you haven't already (described below). Already trained in RA and WC? Then contact me to learn more about monthly meetings to support disciplinary writing with Writing Collaborative and disciplinary reading with Reading Apprenticeship.

Upcoming Literacy Professional Development

Winter K-12 Literacy Summit

Socially and Culturally Relevant Literacy

Finding effective ways to teach today’s student population is perhaps the greatest challenge facing literacy educators in the United States. As classrooms become increasingly diverse, educators struggle to find curricula and pedagogical strategies that are inclusive and affirmative yet facilitate the development of academic and critical literacies. Much of the multicultural education literature has limited conceptions of culture as a racial or ethnic identity. Teachers have little help on creating learning communities in multiethnic classrooms (Mc,Carthy, 1998).

Join Dr. Morrell to learn about new approaches for critical reading of popular culture to help all students deconstruct dominant narratives in the teaching of literacy.

Writing in the World Language Classroom: Where there are words, there is magic!

February 10, 2015

8:30-3:30 at WISD

Writing in another language involves much more than translating and completing homework assignments from the text. Writing is a powerful skill through which students express themselves in the new language. This workshop addresses the national and state standards for written communication, compares those standards with common core expectations for writing, and explores a variety of real-world writing tasks and strategies at the word, phrase, sentence and paragraph level across a range of proficiency levels.

Writing Collaborative- Disciplinary Writing

Dr. Troy Hicks from CMU visited our group to share his new book Crafting Digital Writing with us and kick off our year of study around this text. By looking at the MAPS- Mode, Media, Audience, Purpose and situation we can think about how best to approach 21st century writing. Our notes, with links to tools, can be seen on Troy's Wikispace.

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Upcoming Literacy Professional Development

Fall K-12 Literacy Summit on Speaking and Listening with Erik Palmer

Many states have changed standards to increase emphasis on the most important language art: speaking. This presentation centers on the art of effective oral communication. Speaking skills are broken into manageable, teachable parts to speak well in a variety of settings. Participants will come away with an understanding of the elements of successful speaking.

Drawing upon twenty years of success, the ideas presented will change how participants think about speaking. Whether the goal is improved class discussions, improved formal speeches, or improved one on one communication, this presentation will give teachers a new framework to improve student speaking in the classroom and beyond.

Visit the site devoted to speaking and listening ideas: www.pvlegs.com

Tuesday, September 23, 2014

Existing literacy networks at WISD, Study of Early Literacy (SOEL) Reading Apprenticeship (RA), and Writing Collaborative (WC), each focus on particular elements of literacy instruction and grade levels. However, the literacy umbrella is wide, and often topics arise that are of interest and importance to teachers of all subject areas and grade levels.

The K-12 Literacy Summits scheduled for this year will bring together K-12 educators on:

Tuesday, September 2, 2014

Building Classroom Libraries

for all grades and all subjects!

We should be curators of our libraries, not just collectors. Offering students an engaging, diverse classroom library requires more than buying books and putting them on bookshelves . . . managing a classroom library requires curation -- selecting the best most current materials for both curriculum needs and student interests. -Donalynn Miller

If you are wondering how to get started on a classroom library, how to strengthen your existing one, or how to create reading nooks, check out these articles by Choice Literacy teachers:

TED-Ed Clubs is a flexible, school-based program that supports students in discussing, pursuing and presenting their big ideas in the form of short TED-style talks. Watch the video or check the site to learn more.

Friday, May 30, 2014

How to Teach Listening in the Digital Age

Knowing that speaking and listening are important literacy skills, but often not incorporated into curriculum, Erik Palmer, consultant with ASCD, developed a media literacy unit entitled "Listening in the Digital Age." Erik answers questions such as Who teaches students to evaluate sound? Who teaches students to evaluate images? Who teaches students to evaluate video? Read Erik's whole article here. He will be coming to WISD on October 1st for a workshop on his speaking and listening framework for the K-12 classroom! (more info. to come this fall).

Using Text Sets to Support Common Core Implementation

Students need to be able to critically think about increasingly complex texts and to read across informational and literary texts. Building strong text sets can be one way of supporting teachers in providing the necessary reading experiences. A text set is a group of books used to build background knowledge and common vocabulary around a theme or topic.

In the text set an anchor book is used as the focus of a unit or lesson and a series of additional information at various reading levels is strategically chosen to support the anchor text. The materials available at the Library of Michigan MDE site explain how the sets can be created and used. You will also find text sets listed here in this growing resource site.

Thursday, May 1, 2014

Apps to Assist in Everyday Literacy Tasks

These are useful for communicating, collaborating, note-taking and annotating.

Pocket helps manage your readings. If you get numerous online reading suggestions per day or week, this is a great tool to manage them and keep them all in one place. It has a "night" function that dims the screen.

GroupMe allows you set up a private group for text messaging. A class could have its own GroupMe discussion space, and then students can send each other reminders, ask each other questions, etc. This tool allows the class to communicate with each other inside and outside of classroom hours, and the students can go to each other for help. Works on phones, mobile devices like iPads or iPods, and computers, so students don't need a smart phone.

Remind101allows you to send texts to students without seeing each other's phone numbers. Several teachers use this one to send reminders like "First draft due tomorrow, and don't forget the Works Cited page."

Evernote is more of a "one-stop-shopping" app. It lets you manage notes, images, readings, and more all in one place. It has a free level and then for pay you get additional capabilities.

Subtext Subtext is a digital reading program built for K12 classrooms. Read and collaborate with your classroom for free by creating private groups, embedding discussion, finding content, researching, annotating and more.

Inkstains- A summer writing camp for middle and high school students- located at EMU.

End-of-Year Writing and Summer Reading

Read what literacy consultant Franki Sibberson suggests for some thoughtful literacy activities for the end of the school year and some non-fiction, picture books, YA novels and inspirational texts for all readers this summer.

Monday, March 31, 2014

April is National Poetry Month!

NATIONAL POETRY MONTH is not just for English teachers!

Inspire the Next Poet Laureate!

Inaugurated by the Academy of American Poets in 1996, National Poetry Month is now held every April, when schools, publishers, libraries, booksellers and poets throughout the country join to celebrate poetry and its vital place in American culture. Thousands of organizations participate through readings, festivals, book displays, workshops, and other events. Here are some helpful links.

•Edutopia offers a number of resources, including perspectives on how to teach poetry, classroom activities, and inspirational videos.

• At the American Academy of Poets, educators can sign up to get a free poster and check out other resources celebrating the event, including 30 ways to celebrate poetry.

• The Library of Congress offers Poetry 180, a poem a day for American high school students.

Writing in the Digital Age

In this Edutopia Big Thinkers video, Elyse Eidman-Aadahl, co-director of the National Writing Project, talks about writing in the digital age and how writing has evolved. How has communication through writing changed? As you watch and listen to Elyse, think about how this applies to your classroom, your students, and your teaching.

Professional Development

Writing Collaborative (grades 4-12)

April 29, 30, and May 16, 2014 at WISD 8:30-3:30

OR

June 18, 19, 20 2014 at WISD 8:30-3:30

*All details, costs, and registrations can be found on WISDGoSignMeUP!

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Reading Apprenticeship (grades 4-12)

April 22, 23 and May 14, 2014 at WISD 8:30-3:30

OR

June 24, 25, 26 at WISD 8:30-3:30

*All details, costs, and registrations can be found on WISDGoSignMeUP!

Saturday, March 1, 2014

Literacy Education in the United States

The National Center for Literacy Education (NCLE) has shown that educators' most powerful learning experiences come from working with their colleagues. In a recent survey, NCLE wanted to find out if schools and districts are taking a capacity building or incentive driven approach to putting the CCSS for literacy in place. The graphic below illustrates their findings:

Literacy Initiatives at WISD

On February 27th, teachers of all subject areas, instructional coaches, and administrators met with Literacy Leaders of Washtenaw and Livingston counties to plan for literacy instruction implementation in their buildings. If you missed it, please view the highlights below for updates on Writing Collaborative and Reading Apprenticeship.

Cool Websites for Literacy Integration

Part of being literate means being able to read, comprehend, and write about graphs. Graph of the Week provides graphs, questions for reading and thinking about them, and writing prompts for each graph, and it is all free!

*Thanks to Brandon Szwejkowski of Milan Area Schools for sharing these at our Writing Collaborative meeting!